Long Live Freedom
by Myra109
Summary: Jessica and Evan were visiting a tourist attraction in Germany when they find themselves time traveling to the 1500s. Not only that, but they're also living the lives of their ninth great-great grandparents and are being hunted down by a strange man who wants them dead. Based off of A Night In Terror Tower
1. Chapter 1

_Hi. This is based off of A Night In Terror Tower, but there are distinct differences._

 _This is a prompt from retro mania._

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

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"If you want to scare yourself while having fun and learning about some _interesting_ points in history, come on down to Germany's number one tourist attraction, Terror Tower!" the announcer on the television shouted (thankfully, the commercial was in English. The two siblings were tired of trying to decipher a language they didn't speak).

"I wish we could go to a cool place like that," Evan muttered. "I'm tired of museums."

"Me, too," his older sister Jessica agreed.

Jessica was almost fourteen and had curly red hair; her eyes were an emerald green, and her skin was pale and painted with freckles. She was wearing blue jeans and a forest green shirt while being huddled inside her navy blue hoodie, trying to shield herself from the chilly wind.

Her brother, Evan, was twelve and had a mop of hair that was somewhere between red and brown; his eyes were green, but the shade was closer to blue when the light hit his eyes just right. His skin was also pale and splattered with freckles. He was wearing baggy blue jeans and a red T-shirt with a black jacket over his shirt; the jacket was speckled with droplets of rain, which had fallen that morning and stopped less than an hour ago.

They were both visiting Germany to celebrate the day their ninth great-great grandmother narrowly escaped death and to mourn the deaths of their other ninth great-great grandparents (their ninth great-great grandmother had two siblings who died as children). They didn't really know what happened to their ninth great-great grandmother or her siblings (all they knew was that their ninth great-great grandmother had narrowly escaped death back in the fifteen hundreds on this very day); their parents had never told them exactly what happened. It was more of a family reunion than anything.

"And you're in luck," their tour guide cheered from behind them in a thick German accent. "Because Terror Tower is our next stop!"

"Awesome!" Evan shouted in excitement.

Jessica laughed. "Let's go board the bus. We don't want to get left behind!"

"Definitely not. We wouldn't even be able to ask for directions," Evan chuckled as they boarded the bus.

Half an hour later, the bus pulled up in front of Terror Tower, and Evan gaped.

The building was certainly spooky. It was a huge tower, at least ten stories tall, and made of gray bricks. The door was four times as tall as Evan, and his eyes wandered up the tower, taking in the scattered windows and old, but somehow still in good condition, walls until his eyes landed on the top of the tower.

His jaw dropped.

At first glance, he saw nothing, but after his eyes focused for another few moments, he saw a man standing on the parapets. He was tall and young- maybe in his twenties- and was wearing baggy, dusty, gray robes. His red hair was stringy and dangled over his shoulders. Shackles cut into his wrists, and chains dragged him down.

His lips were moving, and Evan strained his ears.

"RUN!" he was shouting. "TURN BACK!"

"Jess!" Evan squealed, grabbing her wrist and turning to see his sister. "Do you see him, too?" he asked, pointing to the top of the tower.

She frowned and turned her head, following his finger. "See who?" she asked.

Evan gasped and followed her gaze. He knew that he'd seen a man, a _prisoner_ , but he'd turned around for one second, and when he looked back…

The man was gone. It was as if he'd never been there.

"Come along, children! You don't want to get left behind!" the tour guide shouted.

Evan sighed, trying to forget about the frightened expression on the man's face, as he followed the tour group into the tower.

Evan didn't think it was possible to feel more uneasy, but that was before he stepped inside the tower.

"Stick together. We're going up!" the tour guide announced, pointing towards the ceiling before beginning to ascend the stairs.

"This used to be the torture chamber!" the guide said once they reached a circular room on the fourth floor. There was a small window, not nearly big enough for a human to squeeze through, and the sunlight slanting across the floor made the dust more pronounced. The dim lanterns on the walls glowed upon the exhibits.

"This is the stretcher. They would chain your wrists and feet and stretch you until your spinal cord snapped!" the guide snarled in a spooky voice. "This is the wheel, where they would spin you until you were too dizzy to stand straight. It may not look like a harsh form of torture, but it rattled their brains so badly, they couldn't speak for a week."

"What's this?" Jessica questioned, pointing to a statue. The statue was of a man wearing dark clothes and a gray mask that completely covered his face and was holding an axe.

"That's a statue of the executioner," the tour guide answered before resuming his speech about the various forms of torture.

Jessica and Evan gazed at the statue, and the longer they stared at it, the more it started to look… familiar.

Evan turned back to the guide and was about to follow their group into the next room when Jessica suddenly screamed.

Evan followed her gaze, and his eyes widened as the statue- the _statue_ \- raised its arms, preparing to bring the axe down on the two children…

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 _Cliffhanger! Thanks for reading. Leave a review! Goodbye, everyone._


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello, everyone. Here's chapter 2._

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

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Evan blinked, and the statue had returned to its original position. It didn't appear to have moved at all, but Jessica's equally terrified eyes proved otherwise. After all, how could they both have the same hallucination?

"What happened?" their tour guide questioned, back pedaling and rushing into the room.

"It moved!" Jessica yelped, pointing a shaky finger at the statue.

A man sighed. "It's just two kids playing a trick!"

"Kid these days," his wife muttered. "No respect."

"Agreed," another man mumbled. "I blame the parents."

The tour group returned to the other room, and the irritated tour guide ushered the protesting children into the next room.

"I could've sworn it moved!" Jessica yelled.

"It had to," Evan agreed. "How could we both have the same hallucination?"

The man rolled his eyes, wondering what kind of parents would leave their kids- their _mischievous_ kids- with a tour group. They could've at least left them in the hotel room while they went to their meeting (he'd heard the kids mention that), so that the kids could stay out of trouble and not bother other tourists.

"To the top of the tower!" the man shouted, and the tour group climbed the spiral staircase until they reached the top of the tower.

"These people must've been athletes," Evan panted, lifting his leg with difficulty and placing it on the next step. "I'm getting winded, and we're not even at the top yet."

"I feel bad for the old people," Jessica murmured, gesturing to the exhausted elderly lagging behind.

"We have reached the top!" the guide exclaimed, and the children sighed in relief as they stepped into some kind of cell.

The cell was circular with a weathered gray floor and walls made of uneven stone that scraped Evan's hand when he touched it. A window peered into the world outside, and Jessica peaked over the window sill before pulling back, nauseous from seeing the dizzying height. No wonder the window was open; jumping from this height was suicide, not escape.

"Look at this!" Evan called, and Jessica followed the sound of his voice to see him kneeling in front of the wall of a small corner. There were words engraved into the stone.

 _"Long… Live… Freedom,"_ Jessica read, squinting at the worn wall and the centuries old carving.

"Back in the fifteen hundreds, a prince and two princesses were kidnapped from their kingdom," the guide informed them. "Their uncle had killed his brother-their father- and took over the kingdom. He imprisoned the three children with an intent to execute them to ensure that they could never take the throne. Can you imagine? Three children- one as young as seven years old- kidnapped from their home and kept in this cold, dark cell, which _stank_ of hopelessness. Can you imagine their fear as they were lead to receive the executioner's axe?" the man's voice rose as the story continued, and he enunciated the final word.

Jessica and Evan exchanged nervous glances, feeling a strange feeling well up in their chests. They couldn't describe it, but the feeling was a sense of uneasiness, an instinct that told them to run and never look back.

"I can imagine," Evan murmured, turning to his sister, as their group exited the room. "I wish I couldn't."

Jessica nodded. "Me, too."

They turned back around, prepared to follow their group, but they froze when they realized that it was silent and the door was shut. Their group had completely disappeared.

"Where'd they go?" Jessica asked, and she prepared to take a step forward and open the door when someone suddenly opened the door and stepped inside.

It was a man with a dark, scruffy beard and a low hanging hat; he was wearing dark clothes, and he had an aura of someone you _should_ be afraid of.

They didn't know him.

"Excuse me, sir. Have you seen our tour group?" Jessica squeaked, frightened by the man's appearance and the dark gaze in his eyes.

The man smiled, darkly. He stared at them as if he recognized them, and the longer Jessica and Evan stared at him, the more he looked familiar to them.

"It is time, children," he whispered.

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 _Thank you for reading! Another cliffhanger! Bye!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Sorry I skipped last week's update, but I'm making up for it this week. My goal is to finish this story this week, so you'll be getting multiple chapters on most nights of this week (not all of them, but most of the days)_

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

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"Time for what?" Jessica asked, her voice trembling. Logically, she knew there probably wasn't anything to be afraid of. It was probably just a part of the tour- experiencing what it was like to be trapped in the tour with only the creepy guards for company. But something told her that that wasn't the case.

"You know," he said. "Come along quietly, and do yourselves a favor and don't fight or try to escape. If you're quiet and obedient, I'll make sure your fate is quick and painless. But if you choose to fight me or run away… well, I can't promise the same thing."

"What's he talking about, Jessica?" Evan hissed, his hand gripping his sister's.

"I don't know," she replied, swallowing harshly. Her initial trepidation was quickly spiraling into full out fear, and if she didn't get some answers soon, that fear would become absolute terror.

The man started walking out of the cell, and Jessica and Evan, currently having no other option, followed him.

If the cell was freezing, the rest of the tower was downright frigid. Evan and Jessica couldn't suppress their shivers as they wandered through the dark hallways, jumping at every little shadow that stretched its bony fingers towards the children. Even the flickering flames on the walls did nothing to chase away the darkness. If anything, it only made the darkness more pronounced. Every step they took echoed in the hallways, and for a while, their footsteps and heavy breathing were the only noises… but then some louder, more frightening noises met their ears.

Yelling. Clattering. Screaming. Bangs. The sounds of desperate souls crying out for help, for mercy, for release, for freedom. The sounds for fighting, of arguing. It sounded like the noises you would hear in a rowdy prison… or a rowdy dungeon.

One thing was all too obvious. This was no place for children.

"Your sister is already in the chamber," the man told them. "Unlike you two, she hasn't been very quiet. Since she is so young, I'll give her a quick death as long as you two behave."

"Sister?" Jessica demanded, confusion present in her voice, as well as anxiety and apprehension. "We don't have a sister!"

The man's laugh echoed off the walls, making the siblings jump at the booming noise that rattled inside their brains and rung in their ears for several seconds. "Seriously, did you think I would fall for that? I've known your family before _you_ were even born," he told them, pointing at Jessica. "Everyone has! I think I'd remember if your parents only had two children."

"Well, I think I'd remember having another sister!" Evan snapped with a rude tone.

"I'd watch your tone, boy, or you'll be going last. You wouldn't want to see both of your sisters perish, now would you?" the man mocked.

"Perish!" the two children yelled, glancing at one another. The truth was obvious now. This man was leading them to their deaths, like leading two lambs to the slaughter.

"Don't play dumb with me. You've know this was coming for days," the man said with a raised eyebrow. "You're lucky we let you live this long, not to mention the fact that we're allowing you to have one last family reunion before your inevitable demise."

Jessica glanced at Evan, and Evan nodded. Clearly, he'd understood the unspoken word in Jessica's eyes.

 _Run._

Evan raised his foot and stomped on the man's heel so hard, the man tripped over his pant leg and fell to the ground. Jessica and Evan sprinted past him, making sure to step on him at least once along the way. The man would need a minute to overcome the pain in his body and make it to his feet in order to chase after them. Hopefully, that would give them the time they needed.

"Jessica, here!" Evan shouted, his voice echoing off the stone walls, and he pointed to a small door. It wasn't big enough for the man to fit through (at least not without it taking a while for him to squeeze through it), but it was just big enough for them.

Evan opened the door, to reveal tunnels running beneath the floor. It was a long drop to the ground, but it was their only chance at escape.

"Hurry!" Jessica yelled as the man's angry roar thundered through the hallways. He'd obviously overcome the pain, and he was mad. _Really_ mad.

Evan nodded, and he squeezed through the door, dropping to the ground with a thump that echoed even more in the tunnels than in the tower. Having landed on his knees, he climbed to his feet and stepped out of the way as Jessica began to climb through the doorway.

"I've got you!" the man yelled, grabbing Jessica's hair and yanking it. Jessica yelped, and in a rush of adrenaline and instinct, she slammed her elbow into his nose, forcing him to release her.

Free from the man's grasp, the brother and sister broke into a run through the tunnels, praying for escape, for safety, for freedom.

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 _Thanks for reading! I'll try to have chapter 4 and possibly chapter 5 up tonight!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Here's chapter 4. Hope you enjoy!_

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

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"How long have we been running?" Evan asked, his chest feeling tight from all the sprinting they'd been doing for what felt like hours.

"It couldn't have been that long," Jessica managed as she tried to control her gasps and increase her speed. "After all, the tower isn't that big!"

"Jessica, look, I see an exit!" Evan cheered upon seeing a small steel circle above their heads. On the edges of the circle, very narrow slivers of light crept into the dark tunnels, and Evan knew that that was their way out.

Evan stopped directly under their exit and gestured for Jessica to come closer.

"Give me a boost," he told her, and she locked her hands, grunting as her brother stepped on the makeshift step and placed all of his weight on her hands. He used his fingertips to push the circle upward until he could see through the small space he'd created between the ground and the circular object.

Evan barely had time to see the ginormous truck barreling towards him before he dropped the circular object and ducked. He flinched at the loud rattling sound the metal made as the truck drove over it.

Peeking out (more carefully this time), Evan deemed it safe and heaved himself out of the hole and onto the currently empty street directly outside of the tower. He lowered a hand into the man hole and struggled to pull his sister onto higher ground. When he finally succeeded, the siblings ran to the side of the road (the opposite side of the road from Terror Tower) and stood side by side, watching cars rush by them and searching for the strange, dangerous man that had been chasing them.

"What on earth just happened?" Evan asked, which pretty much summed it up.

"I have no idea, but I have a feeling that we don't _want_ to know," Jessica told her brother, "and that we should probably get away from that tower as fast as humanly possible. Let's go get a cab."

The brother and sister raced over to the nearest cab, and they slid into the back seat.

"Where to?" the driver (a man in his late forties with a big, flat nose and bushy eyebrows) asked, not sounding very interested.

"Um, Hotel Hudson von Licht," Jessica told him _(totally made up hotel by the way. It's Hotel Hudson of Light… I basically just put the first three words that came to my mind together, so…)._

The man nodded and started driving. For several moments, the children sat there, stunned by that day's events, and listening to the rumble of the engine and the fast beating of their hearts.

"What do we do?" Evan asked, quietly. "There's a crazy man that wants to kill us, and I don't think he'll give up just because we left the Tower!"

"We'll find Mom and Dad," Jessica responded. "We'll tell them what happened, and they'll definitely take us home, family reunion or not."

"What if they don't believe us?" Evan asked. "Heck, I wouldn't believe us."

"Mom and Dad will believe us. They always know when we're lying and when we're not. It's just a parent thing," Jessica pointed out. "They will believe us. They have to, and even if they don't, we leave Germany in three days. If we stay away from the tower and keep our eyes wide open, we can avoid the creepy man until we go home. After all, he doesn't know what hotel we're staying in, does he?"

Evan nodded. "You're right. Yeah… you're totally right."

Silence reigned for several minutes, and finally, the taxi driver pulled up in front of the hotel. Jessica and Evan breathed a heavy sigh of upmost relief at being so close to their parents, who always made them feel safe just by being in the same room as the two children.

"That'll be twenty-five euros," the man said _(I have no idea how German money works, so I apologize if this is an unrealistic amount)._

"Euros? German money? Do you take American money? I'm sure you can get it exchanged," Jessica said, reaching into her pocket for her wallet.

The man snorted. "American money? No. Only German money."

"But I don't think our parents gave us… what the…" Jessica muttered as she pulled some money out of her pocket.

She exchanged a glance with her brother. She was _positive_ her parents hadn't given her any German money, only American. Most places in this city accepted American money, after all, so there wasn't any need to get dollars exchanged for euros. She'd left the house that morning with a hundred dollars… American dollars… No other kind of money.

So how did she have euros in her pocket?

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 _Thanks for reading! Please leave a review!_


	5. Chapter 5

_Here's chapter 5! Hope you like it!_

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

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Frowning, she handed twenty-five euros to the driver, who quickly counted them and stared at the kids in annoyance, like they'd somehow in convinced him by riding in his taxi, before she slid out of the taxi, her brother following her shortly after.

"Where did you get those euros from?" he asked as they entered the building. They gazed around, uncomfortably; for some reason, they felt like they were being watched, and it only added to the fear in their stomachs, which was growing by the minute.

Jessica shrugged. "I don't know. They were just there. I have no idea where they came from or how they got in my pocket."

"Maybe Mom and Dad can tell us what the heck is going on," Evan said. "Maybe they put the euros in your pocket and forgot to tell you, and as for the man… Maybe it has something to do with our great-great-great-great-"

"I get it," Jessica interrupted.

"-grandparents. They never told us what happened to them; maybe they made somebody mad, and it resulted in a ninth or tenth generation family feud!" Evan exclaimed, trying to keep his voice down after he got some weird looks due to his rapid speech and his wild gesticulations.

Jessica stared at him with raised eyebrows, as though asking him _are you serious?_

"Hey, a strange, creepy man is trying to kill us for no apparent reason! Anything is possible!" Evan told her. "After all, our ninth great-great grandmother narrowly escaped death, but our parents never told us what was trying to kill her. All we know is that it killed her siblings. What if that guy's family has something against ours? What if his great-great times nine or ten grandparents tried to kill our ancestors and that's why our family moved away from Germany? And now that our family has returned after so many centuries, his family wants to finish the job?"

Jessica blinked. "That theory, while far fetched, is plausible. I'll give you that, but if that is the case, and I'm not saying it is, our family must've made his family really mad if they're still trying to get revenge… what? Over three centuries after our ninth great-great grandmother escaped them? We'll keep that theory in mind, but I won't believe it until we find proof."

Evan nodded, and Jessica began searching her pockets and wallet for the room key.

"That's weird," she muttered. "I know I had it on the tour bus."

"Maybe you dropped it while we were running," Evan suggested. "We'll just go ask the person at the front desk for another key."

Jessica nodded, and they approached the front desk.

The man behind the desk glanced down at them. He raised his eyebrows and gazed at the children, as though they were somehow irritating him just by standing there. And they hadn't even said anything yet! His glare made the children uneasy, but not afraid like the strange man's face had when he lead them out of the cell in the tower.

"Um, I'm afraid we've lost our room key," Jessica told him, swallowing hard and trying not to openly display the anxiety and uneasiness she obviously felt. "Our parents are out with some other members of our family and can't let us into the room. Can we have another key?"

"Room number?" he asked, flatly, his fingers resting on the keys of his computer.

"Room 1496," Jessica answered, and he typed that into the computer.

"There is no one staying in that room," he informed her. "Are you sure that's the right room number?"

Jessica nodded. "I'm positive. I even wrote it down after my brother mixed up the numbers for the third time," Jessica said, handing him a slip of paper with the number written on it.

"Hey, you forgot the number, too," Evan pointed out.

"As I said, there is no one staying in that room," the man told them. "What are your names?"

"Jessica and Evan," Jessica responded.

"Last name?" the man asked, his tone displaying his obvious annoyance with the two kids.

The woman next to them rolled her eyes, impatiently, and Jessica and Evan were surprised she hadn't shoved them out of the way already.

"Shepard," Jessica replied _(I don't remember giving them a last name before this, but if I did and it's something different, just review and tell me and I'll change it)_ , and she watched him type their names onto the computer.

The man glanced up, his eyebrows furrowing in annoyance once again, and that irritation was rapidly turning into anger.

"There is no one with the last name of Shepard staying in this hotel. Now, if you will stop wasting my time, I have other guests I need to assist."

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 _Ooh, cliffhanger! What is happening? Well, you'll have to wait to find out, so until then, thanks for reading! Please leave a review!_


	6. Chapter 6

_This chapter is actually getting posted sooner than expected, so... yay!_

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own Haunting Hour._**

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Jessica reluctantly dragged Evan away from the front desk while the snooty looking woman approached the desk, looking relieved that the children (who everyone seemed to have deemed as no good, annoying pests) had left.

"Mom and Dad wouldn't leave us here!" Evan whispered, panic seeping into his voice, despite his attempts to fight down his fear. "So how can there not be anyone by the name Shepard in the hotel?"

"I'll try calling them," Jessica suggested, patting the pockets of her jacket for her cell phone before she suddenly frowned, confusion etched in her features. "That's weird. My phone's gone. It was in a zipped pocket! How can it just be gone?"

Evan hurried to search his own pockets for his cell phone, and the puzzled expression already present on his face intensified when he came up empty.

"I don't have mine either," Evan muttered, turning all of his pockets inside out and only finding his wallet (like his sister's, filled with euros) and his tour guide ticket. "What are the chances that we both lost our phones when we needed them most?"

Jessica shook her head. "The chances are very slim. Do you have any change?" she asked, hope glimmering in her eyes when she spotted a pay phone nearby.

Evan nodded and handed her a few coins (German coins, which only confused them more, but they had bigger problems to worry about than the sudden change in currency), and he watched, hardly daring to hope, as she slid the coins into the slot on the pay phone. Metallic clangs sounded with each coin, and after entering the third coin into the slot, Jessica dialed their mother's number, licking her lips in worry as she held the phone up to her ear.

A few moments of silence before Jessica slammed the phone down in frustration.

"It says the phone number is no longer in service," she muttered.

"How can that be?" Evan demanded before handing her nine more coins. "Try Dad. Then Aunt Margaret, and then Uncle Joey. If none of them work… well, we're in a lot of trouble."

Jessica nodded before entering the coins into the slot and swallowing as she held the phone up to her ear and prayed that someone would answer, preferably someone they knew (but she would even take a stranger if it got them one step closer to figuring out what the heck was going on).

Dad's phone number, out of service. Aunt Margaret, nothing. Uncle Joey was their last try.

Ring, ring, ring… Evan prayed and hoped with every fiber of his being; he even crossed his fingers and toes.

Jessica slammed the phone down with a loud clang that attracted the attention of several now annoyed guests. _"Nichts!"_ she yelled.

Evan jumped at the sudden German word that exited his sister's mouth (and the perfect accent that came with it); _nothing,_ his brain mentally translated, even though Evan had never learned any German, and after multiple days of hearing the language (and not understanding a word of it), he never wanted to hear it again.

"What did you just say?" he asked, quietly, not quite believing what had just happened- his sister had spoken a language neither of them had ever learned, and he'd understood her.

"I said nothing, as in _this number is no longer in service,_ " Jessica replied in a good imitation of the telephone operator (and thankfully in her normal accent and not a German one), and she leaned against the wall, crossing her arms, unsure of what to do now. She hadn't even noticed her previous change in language.

"No," Evan murmured. "You said _nichts,_ as in _nothing_ in German, and I understood you. But we've never learned the language. How can that be possible?"

Now that Evan mentioned it, Jessica was a little freaked out by that.

"Well… we've been in Germany for a few days, and our Aunt Margaret speaks German. Maybe we picked some words up. It's the only explanation," Jessica pointed out, but she didn't sound totally convinced by her own words. Something just told her that it was something else, but she wasn't sure what that something else could be.

Evan rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't say it's the only explanation; it's just the only one that makes any sense, but considering nothing makes any sense anymore, picking up a few German words probably isn't the case."

"Let's go into the restaurant," Jessica suggested. "We'll get something to drink, maybe some food, and we'll… recharge. We're exhausted from running; maybe a break will help us think more clearly. We'll sit down, and we'll talk everything over and try to find some kind of solution."

Evan nodded. "Yeah. That's a good plan," he agreed before they entered the hotel restaurant.

Neither of them noticed the strange man that had been chasing them earlier that day enter the hotel, scanning the room for the children he was hunting…

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 _Thanks for reading!_


	7. Chapter 7

_Hi! This chapter is kind of a recap and a filler chapter, so it's not important to the storyline, but it is an important transition to the next chapter. Also, a lot of things have happened, and it's even hard for **me** to keep track, so this chapter will kind of go over everything that's happened, as well as give a few hints as to what's going on._

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

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Jessica and Evan sat at a table as far in the back as possible, and they couldn't help glancing around the restaurant, searching for danger.

"What may I get you?" a waiter asked, approaching their table. He, too, seemed annoyed by their very presence, and Jessica and Evan were getting tired of those annoyed looks every adult seemed to be giving them. If they weren't so confused and fearful due to the strange events of that day, they probably would've said something about the annoyed glares and the snooty tones by now.

"Um, two waters and a bread basket, please," Jessica requested. The apprehension they were both feeling meant that eating was the last thing they wanted to do, but they needed to restore their energy, so a few pieces of bread and plenty of water would do the trick, hopefully.

"So… what do we know?" Evan asked.

"Well, we lost our tour group in that creepy tower, and all of a sudden, a strange man comes in and leads us down the hall, which was a lot darker and damper than I remember it being when we went through it before. And then he mentions a sister, which we don't have," Jessica added. "And then he says he's leading us to our deaths, but he didn't tell us why he wanted to kill us."

"He acted like he knew us or at least our family. He acted like we knew what he was talking about. Could he have mistaken us for someone else? Or maybe this is somehow connected to our ancestors," Evan suggested.

The waiter returned with a bread basket, and he rested it on the table and two water bottles beside the children before rushing off as fast as possible, as though the children might infect him with cooties or something.

Jessica munched on a piece of bread while Evan swallowed several gulps of water in one go, dehydrated from all the running they'd been doing, not to mention that Evan always got dry mouth when he was afraid (that happens to me, but I'm not sure if it's a normal thing or if it just depends on the person).

"But how?" Jessica asked. "What could our ninth great-great grandparents have done that was bad enough for these people to hold it against our family for over three centuries?"

"Um…" Evan muttered as he thought that over. "Family feud is an obvious option. Maybe our ancestors were criminals, and they did something to someone in this family. Or maybe someone in that family was the criminal and our ancestors saw something that they weren't supposed to see. There's a lot of possibilities, but we're not any closer to figure out which possibility is the truth."

Jessica nodded. "Okay, what else do we know? Our American money was somehow replaced with German money, which doesn't make any sense. Both of our phones are missing. Everyone is treating us like we're grubby kids off the street, like pests. I mean, sure, not everyone likes kids, but the cab driver, the waiter, the person at the desk, not to mention all the other guests, seemed to be annoyed by our very presence. It's like they think kids are viruses or something!"

"And last but definitely not least, our parents have seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. There is no one staying in room 1496 or in this hotel with the last name Shepard. Their phones are out of service, as well as our aunt and uncle's. We have all these puzzle pieces, but there's no way to fit them together. We're missing something crucial," Evan pointed out as he polished off his water.

Jessica nodded as she finished her own water shortly after her brother and pushed the empty bottles and the remains of the bread basket away from them.

"I agree with you, but what are we missing? We can't find our family. We have no idea what's going on. The only one who might know what's happening is the man that wants to kill us, and I am most certainly not going to ask him," she muttered.

"Our family is somehow in the center of this," Evan commented. "We can't find our parents, our aunt, or our uncle, but there is one option. This sister he mentioned. If we could find a computer and search our names, maybe we can find out who she is! Maybe she's the missing link we need."

Jessica nodded. "Okay. Let's go. Maybe we can find a library with a computer we can use."

"You two aren't going anywhere," a voice sneered.

Jessica and Evan slowly looked up, and terror crept onto their faces when they looked into the frightening eyes of the strange man that had been chasing them. The strange man that wanted them dead.

* * *

 _Cliffhanger! This story will probably have a lot of those, actually..._

 _Thank you for reading! Goodbye, everyone!_


	8. Chapter 8

_Hello, readers! Here's chapter 8._

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

* * *

Jessica and Evan wasted no time in shooting to their feet, knocking over the chairs they were sitting in in the process, and the man made a mad grab for them, but the nimble teens slipped out of his reach.

"What is going on?" a waiter shouted, reaching for the collars of Jessica and Evan's jackets (he obviously thought the kids were simply causing trouble and not that the children might actually be in danger), but the kids, desperate for an escape, shoved past him.

Panic flowing through their veins, the kids ran through the nearest door and found themselves in a long hallway that lead into the kitchen.

A series of loud crashes from behind them meant that the waiter and the strange man had run into each other in their equal rush to reach the kids before they located the exit. That hopefully bought them a few minutes.

Evan and Jessica's steps echoed in the empty room (all the cooks and employees must've left the kitchen to see what all the ruckus was about) as they ducked around the corner.

"What do we do?" Evan demanded, tears stinging his eyes. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he was on the verge of crying as terrible amounts of fear crashed over him like a tsunami. You would want to cry, too, if a strange man was trying to kill you for an unknown reason.

"Hide!" Jessica hissed, and she helped her little brother crawl into the small space under a counter. She threw a few aprons on the metal counter before ducking under it herself; she allowed the aprons to dangle over the counter like a table cloth. The material not only hid them from view, but was also thick enough not to display their shadows.

The man's heavy boots clunked against the ground, ominously, and Jessica thought that this scene would look perfect in a horror movie. Unfortunately, that thought only increased her already unbearable fear. She held Evan against her body, and together, they trembled and shivered in apprehension beneath the counter, praying that they wouldn't be found.

The man passed them, and Evan and Jessica released silent sighs of relief as they clung to one another, thankful for their good fortune.

When they were least expecting it, the man whooshed aside the aprons, and they fluttered to the floor. The children couldn't swallow their screams as the man grabbed Evan by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the open.

"Leave him alone!" Jessica begged.

She had her chance to run while the man was struggling to control a thrashing Evan, but Jessica refused to leave her brother behind. She'd lost her parents- possibly for good. She'd lost what was left of her normal, everyday life when she first entered Terror Tower, and today, _several times,_ she'd come close to losing her life. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she abandoned her brother and lost Evan, too. She'd rather die with him than live knowing that she'd left him to die to save her own skin.

The man snorted as he slung a kicking and punching Evan over his shoulder, more annoyed by Evan's fighting than threatened by it (after all, he was much stronger than the young boy and was holding Evan, who was fighting like a mad man, with one arm). "Not a chance. You two are coming with me."

The man pulled a couple of things out of his pocket (they were white spheres and looked like three eggs, but it was hard to tell because the man had to constantly adjust his body as Evan's struggling increased rapidly), and he struggled to keep his grip on the objects as Evan fought him even harder, screaming for help, for release, but the man refused to let the terrified, red-haired boy go. Even when Evan started pleading and sobbing in fear (after all, they knew that if they went with the man, there was a chance that they wouldn't be able to escape again, which meant that they'd be meeting death sooner than they'd expected when they woke up that morning), the man showed no mercy, no emotion.

Then, to Jessica's horror, the man and her brother began fading from view, like holograms that were fizzling out. It was shocking and confusing, but the fear of losing her brother overwhelmed her bewilderment.

The man reached for her, but there was no need. Jessica didn't try to dance out of the way or run when the man was too busy dealing with Evan to chase her. In fact, she did the exact opposite.

She lunged forward and grabbed her little brother's hand. She couldn't lose him.

So when the man and Evan vanished from view, Jessica went with them.

* * *

 _Cliffhanger! I don't think I'll be posting any more chapters today, so if that's the case, I'll be back with more chapters tomorrow! Thanks for reading! Please review! Bye!_


	9. Chapter 9

_I am SO sorry for the late update. I honestly last track of how much time had passed since the last update._

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own the TV series (or the book series) Goosebumps._**

* * *

Jessica groaned as she awakened, and she sat up on the concrete floor she was laying on.

Jessica muttered and groaned as she lifted her aching body off of the floor and stood up

What had happened? The last thing she remembered was Evan attacking the strange man that had been chasing them and grabbing his hand right before all three of them disappeared.

Where was she? It looked like the tower, but it was more taken care of, less musty. It was like people actually lived here instead of just being a tourist attraction.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard voices from nearby, and Jessica tentatively walked around the corner, following the noise until she found herself standing behind a long, wooden table.

Jessica flinched in disgust as the people sitting at the table devoured the food in front of them as though they hasn't eaten in weeks before she wandered towards the open door of the tower.

Jessica's eyes widened as she found herself standing in what seemed like a completely different world.

Cottages lined both sides of the winding and curved street (although it didn't look much like a street. More like a dirt road), and animals trotted around yards covered with straw. Clouds of dust filled the air, making Jessica cough as she fully stepped outside.

Even the people looked different. They were wearing dirty, faded rags, and their hair was crusty and tangled and threaded with clumps of dirt. Their faces were smudged with mud and ashes.

Jessica had seemingly stepped out of the 1900s and into the 1600s, but that was impossible!

Then again, her U.S money turning to German Euros was impossible. Her parents disappearing from the hotel records was impossible. Their family's phone numbers being out of order was impossible. Jessica and Evan had experienced a lot of _impossible_ things today.

Speaking of that… where was Evan? Jessica hadn't let go of his hand once. How could he just vanish? If they'd come here together, why would the man take him but not Jessica? He'd been after both of them, after all.

Jessica began to wander down the dirt path, carefully maneuvering around people and animals and carts as she searched for her brother.

"Excuse me?" she called, standing in front of two small children, maybe around the age of ten or eleven. They stared at her in apprehension, as though she had the plague. "Have you seen my brother? He's wearing clothes like me, looks a lot like me?"

They didn't respond.

"Where am I?" Jessica asked. "Is this some kind of theme park? Do you have a phone I could use, even a map?"

The children swallowed before running off, as though afraid a monster might leap out from behind Jessica and attack them.

"Jessabella!" a voice exclaimed, and a hand latched onto her sleeve. Jessica jumped and turned to face a middle aged woman with squinting eyes. "You can't be here! You must run!"

Jessica shook her head. "I-I… have you seen my brother?"

"It is too late for him! You can still be saved! Run! It's the only way to save our kingdom!" the woman shouted.

Jessica did run, but not because the woman told her to. Because she wanted to get as far away from that strange woman as possible.

"Jessabella! They're coming!" another woman yelled, and Jessica followed her gaze to a cart that was being pulled by horses through the town, and her eyes widened when she spotted the man that had been chasing them all day standing in the cart, looking over all of the people in the town. Looking for her.

Jessica didn't have time to wonder why people were calling her Jessabella or why everyone seemed to know her as she was dragged by the woman into the chicken coop.

"Hide here," the woman ordered, lifting a huge basket off of the ground and allowing her to crawl under it. "Don't make a sound."

Jessica nodded as the basket was rested back on the ground.

Oh, Evan, she thought as her hands trembled with her fear. Where are you?

* * *

 _This was more of a filler chapter, and I apologize for that, but it did raise some important questions. Where is Evan? Why is everyone calling Jessica Jessabella? Where is Jessica? What does the man want? What did the woman mean by save the kingdom?_

 _Anyway, I'll try to make the next update sooner than last time! Thanks for reading!_


	10. Chapter 10

_Sorry this chapter took so long, but good news: my goal is 20 chapters total for this story, so we're half way through the story!_

 ** _Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

* * *

Jessica isn't sure how long she laid there, but it was long enough for her mind to start doing circles.

She was going through everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. How long had it been since they'd first entered Terror Tower? A day? Two days? It felt like a month had passed, and not just a day or two.

She had all the pieces, but she couldn't put them together. She couldn't connect the dots. She didn't even know where it all began!

Well… it began when their parents had taken them to Germany for a family reunion…

No. Maybe that wasn't right. Maybe she had to go back further.

In the Medieval period, a time of castles and kingdoms and royalty, their ninth great-great grandmother had escaped death, but whatever she had escaped, her siblings did not. Her brother and sister had perished in whatever had occurred. Their parents had never told them what happened, but Jessica remembered their grandmother telling them the names of their ancestors. If only she could remember them…

Centuries later, Jessica and Evan had come to Germany with their parents to celebrate their ninth great-great grandmother's life. When their parents went somewhere with their relatives, they'd allowed their two children to go sight seeing, which led to them being taken to Terror Tower with their tour group.

Evan had seen a man standing on top of the tower with shackles around his wrists, torn clothes, and the ghostly appearance of a prisoner. Less than half an hour later, Jessica had seen a statue in the tower come to life and take a swing at her and Evan with its axe, but the tour guide believed she was making up stories or imagining things.

After reading the words engraved into the wall- Long Live Freedom- they'd lost their tour group, and the man had appeared, telling them it was time.

They'd been escorted through the tower, now alive with noise and prisoners and so much more that was definitely not part of a trick or a play or even a display. The man had mentioned a sister waiting in the chamber before Evan and Jessica escaped the tower.

They arrived at the hotel they'd been staying at with their parents, and Jessica found out her American money had turned into euros. They'd walked inside, but the man at the desk couldn't find their last name, their parents' names, or their own on his computer, and he informed them that their room was empty.

Their parents', aunt's, and uncle's phone numbers didn't exist, and the man found them in the restaurant. He chased them down in the kitchen, and after hanging onto Evan for dear life when the man and her brother began to disappear, Jessica found herself lying on the floor of the tower.

She was now in what appeared to be the medieval times, as though she had jumped back in time multiple centuries. Everyone was calling her Jessabella and saying something about saving the kingdom before a woman hid Jessica from the man in the chicken coop on the woman's property.

Evan was no where to be found. Her parents were barely memories, forgotten ones. Jessica was confused, scared, and alone.

The basket she was hiding under was lifted, and Jessica grinned in relief as Evan scampered under the basket to kneel beside her.

"Evan!" she whispered. "You're okay!"

"I know. I was so worried about you," Evan murmured, and Jessica was so relieved at seeing her brother, she didn't even notice Evan's new German accent or the fact that she had also gained an accent at some point. "We're somehow in what looks like the medieval times. People keep telling me to save the kingdom and stuff."

"Me, too. They keep calling me Jessabella," Jessica mumbled.

"They keep calling me Edmund," Evan replied.

Jessica froze. Why did those names sound so familiar?

"Evan, do you remember the names of our ninth great-great grandparents?"

Evan nodded. "Our ninth great-great grandmother's name was Lucinda."

"What about her brother and sister, the ones that died?"

"Oh, them. Their names were…" Evan trailed off.

"What?" Jessica demanded.

"Jessabella and Edmund," he muttered.

Jessica swallowed, harshly. There was no way that-

The basket was thrown across the room, and their heads jerked up to see the man looming over them with a nasty smile on his face.

"I'm so sorry. I did everything I could," the woman said as another man put ropes around her wrists.

"I found you," the man taunted. "Get up and come with me, or you'll never see your sister again."

Jessabella, Edmund, a sister… all the facts pointed to one thing, but that thing didn't make any sense!

Was it possible they time traveled and everyone was mistaking them for their ancestors?

Jessica and Evan didn't know it then, but the conclusion they'd come to was only half of the almost unbelievable truth.

* * *

 _This was a recap chapter. The action should start up again next chapter._


	11. Chapter 11

_Hi, everyone. I know it has been a ridicously long time, and I'm sorry._

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own Goosebumps._**

* * *

"It's no use. There's no way out," Evan pointed out.

"Well, I have to try something," Jessica yelled, her voice echoing through the cell.

The cell was… well, a cell. It had gray walls made of stone, and the floor was disgusting, but that was the least of their problems. The cell was so dark, they could barely see a hand in front of their face, and the only light that entered the tiny cell was through a small window near the celling, but it was far too small for a toddler to shimmy out of, much less the two of them. Besides, they were on the top floor of the tower. Even if they somehow managed to make it out of the window, they'd fall to their deaths.

But then again, they were going to die anyway.

"What are you doing?" Jessica asked, taking a break from ramming a heavy rock against the door. She breathed heavily and wiped sweat from her brow before dropping the rock and appearing at Evan's side.

Evan shrugged and pointed to the words he had engraved in the wall with the sharp side of a rock.

 _Long Live Freedom._

"Long Live Freedom, indeed," Jessica stated. "Just not ours."

"Jessica, are we really going to die here?" Evan questioned, sounding younger than Jessica had ever heard him.

Jessica stared at her brother before leaning forward and wrapping her arms around his shaking form. She could feel a few tears drop onto her shirt, but she didn't care, and trembles racked his frame as Jessica held him in her arms.

She was the big sister. It was her job to watch out for her siblings… _sibling_ , she mentally corrected herself, and look where they ended up.

"I really don't know, Evan. I just don't know," Jessica responded, quietly and feebly, but her voice was oddly loud in the silence of their cell, their prison, perhaps the last place they would ever see before they died.

 _Who am I kidding?_ Jessica thought, bitterly. _The execution chamber will be the last place we ever see. I think I'd prefer to die in this cell._

Jessica isn't sure how she managed it, but at some point, she fell into a deep, but definitely not peaceful, sleep.

* * *

 _A girl around the age of fourteen stood on a raised stage in front of a castle. Her blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, long and silky, if a little tangled; she wore armor over her chest with a dark battle skirt. Swords criss crossed in two sheaths on her back. Her blue eyes were fierce and filled with determination._

 _"I am Princess Lucinda, and I have come to fight for my kingdom," she yelled in a voice that was surprisingly strong for someone her age. "I will free my people and avenge my brother and sister, but I cannot do it alone."_

 _People had begun to gather from the village, staring up at the princess in awe. The princess had been missing for seven years and had returned, not as the bubbly, innocent seven year old they remembered, but as a mature, brave young woman that had returned to save her people from the tyrant that she called her uncle._

 _"The village I remember was filled with brave souls that loved their kingdom and loved the royal family. I hope that is still true. Who will stand with me? Who will be my brothers and sisters in battle to avenge the ones we have lost, to retrieve the freedom that was stolen from us?"_

 _A collective cheer rose from the people, and Lucinda held a fist in the air._

 _"Long Live Freedom!" she screamed in the form of a battle cry._

 _With that, the villagers, Princess Lucinda in the lead, stormed the castle._

* * *

Jessica awoke with a gasp, and her sudden movement roused her brother, who had been slumbering (much more peacefully than she was, it seemed) at her side.

"Jessica, what is it?" Evan wondered.

Jessica recalled her strange dream and that girl, who was so brave even though she couldn't be much older than Jessica. She was ready to fight for the freedom of her people… if she could do that, Jessica could fight for the freedom of herself and her brother.

So with a newfound determination, Jessica stated, "We are not going to die here."

Evan watched in confusion as Jessica stood and grabbed the rock she had been using to try and break the door, trying to use it as their way out only an hour before.

"Guard!" she called, making her voice as high pitched and afraid as she could. "Please! We won't fight; we won't escape! Just please let us see our sister!"

Heavy footsteps approached the cell before the click of the lock coming undone could be heard, and the door creaked open.

"About time," the gruff man muttered, but before he could take more than a step into the cell, Jessica brought the rock crashing down on the back of his head, effectively knocking him out cold.

"Come on!" Jessica called to her shocked brother, who had never seen his older sister as a warrior or even as brave, only to watch her take down a man three times her side with a single blow. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would never believe it. "Evan!"

Evan snapped himself out of it and bolted to his feet, stepping over the unconscious man and standing beside his sister at the open door of their cell, now their escape route, their way out.

With one last glance at one another, they sprinted out of the cell.

 _Long Live Freedom, indeed,_ Jessica thought with a proud smile, repeating her words from earlier, _but this time, freedom is ours._


	12. Chapter 12

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Goosebumps._**

* * *

Things went wrong very rapidly.

Jessica and Evan bolted through the castle, neither really paying attention to where they were going, simply knowing that they had to get away.

"Jess, do you remember how to get out of here?" Evan asked, panting for breath.

"Find a staircase, go down until we find the first floor, jump out of a window, and run like heck," Jessica answered, not slowing down. Her lungs were starting to burn, but for all she knew, someone could be right on their tail, so she didn't slow down.

Evan grinned. "Have I ever told you how much I love your plans?"

Jessica laughed. "You're my brother. I don't think you've ever liked anything about me," Jessica pointed out, making the two of them laugh.

Before Evan could formulate a response, several pairs of footsteps thundered down the hall, and the siblings turned to see at least a dozen guards marching towards them, weapons at the ready. One was carrying two heavy sets of chains, presumably to bind Evan and Jessica.

"Okay," Evan muttered. "I get it. Don't joke when you're running for your lives."

The siblings picked up the pace and whirled around the corner, turning down corridors at random until they finally lost the guards at the some point in the maze of hallways.

"Man, how do these people get around?" Evan inquired, glancing at the three hallways branching off with one going straight and one on their left and another on their right.

"Well, it makes a good technique for getting away," Jessica commented. "I think we lost them, but we should keep moving. Which direction should we go?"

Evan pursed his lips before pointing at the tunnel on their left. "Einee, mienee, minie, mo, catch a tiger by its toe."

"You can't be serious," Jessica murmured, watching her younger brother point at a different tunnel each time he said a new word.

"If he hollers, let him go, and you are the one I choose," Evan finished, pointing at the corridor on their left.

"Okay, I guess we're going left," Jessica stated, and the two siblings walked into the hallway, slowing their pace for a short break from sprinting.

They appeared to be in a hall of portraits with paintings dating back decades. If their clothing and their common name were anything to go by, it was the royal family.

Henry and Elizabeth Shepard and their son, Henry II. Henry II and Rosalinda, and their daughter, Morgana Shepard. Fredrick and Morgana Shepard and their son, Steven. Steven and Lillian Shepard, and their twins Amber and Anne. Robert and Amber, and their sons, Jackson and Xavier. Jackson and Adelaide Shepard, and their children…

"Evan…" Jessica didn't even know how to finish as she stared at the last portrait in the hall.

"Why'd you stop?" Evan wondered, back tracking to stand beside her, and he followed her confused and stunned eyes to the portrait. He soon joined her in her gaping.

"Is that…" Evan was afraid to complete his thought, it sounded so ridiculous, "Us?"

"It can't be," Jessica replied.

And yet, it was.

Jessica and Evan stared out of the portrait at their real life selves. Everything was the exact same as their real life counter parts, right down to the scattered freckles on Evan's cheeks. The only difference was the clothing and the hair styles and the age. In the painting, Jessica wore a red gown that brushed the floor with a frilly white collar around the neck line, and Evan wore a shirt that matched the color of Jessica's dress with cream colored bottoms and ankle high boots. Jessica's hair was in a twisted bun on top of her head, and Evan's hair was brushed neatly without a single strand out of place. The kids in the portrait were two years younger than Jessica and Evan, but according to the plaque that was hung on the wall beneath the portrait, the painting had been done two years ago, so the people in the painting would be the same age as Jessica and Evan now.

They weren't the only ones it the portrait either. There was a man and woman, both of which looked frighteningly familiar. The man had hair the same color of Jessica's, and the woman had hair just a little darker than Evan's. They both had green eyes and porcelain skin.

There was another girl in the picture as well, younger than Evan and Jessica. She was around the age of five with blonde hair like captured sunshine. Her toothy smile was so innocent and pure, it made you want to hold her and protect her. Her green eyes seemed to twinkle, even in the portrait. She wore a gown similar to the style of the Jessica look a like's, but this gown was green and lacked a frilly collar.

Jessica bent down to get a closer look at the plaque.

"King Jackson and Queen Adelaide Shepard with their children…" Jessica read, slowly, letting it sink in, "Jessabella, Edmund, and Lucinda."

"That would explain why people keep calling us Jessabella and Edmund. We look exactly like them," Evan pointed out.

Jessica squinted at the plaque, as though searching for an answer that wasn't there.

"I know that girl," she muttered, her eyes focusing on the little blonde child, but before Evan could reply, a yell could be heard from behind them.

"There they are!"

Just like, soldiers were after them again, and the two of them bolted towards the end of the hall, unbelievably relieved when they found a stair case.

They didn't count how many floors they descended. They simply ran down the stairs until they saw a window that was level with the village.

And they jumped out of it.

* * *

 _I hope everyone enjoyed chapter 12! Until new time! Goodbye, everyone._


	13. Chapter 13

_Here's chapter 13 for you guys! Please enjoy and make sure to leave a review! Thank you, everyone!_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the TV series, Goosebumps.**

 **WARNINGS:** ** _very_ brief mention of blood, OC character deaths (not Jessica and Evan, though)**

* * *

"Look, it's the Prince and princess!" a man shouted as soon as Jessica and Evan were spotted by the villagers.

Jessica didn't bother to correct them; she just decided to roll with it as the siblings skidded to a halt in front of a plump woman with dark blonde hair the color of straw and lips that seemed to be permanently pursed.

"Please help us! They're going to kill us!" Jessica begged.

The woman glanced around to make sure there were no guards in sight before ushering the two children into a nearby hut.

"Stay very quiet," she ordered before shoving a heavy chest aside in a surprising show of strength to reveal a human sized hole on the bottom of the wall.

"This leads into a tunnel that runs beneath the kingdom," she informed them. "I sent Cedric down there, but he returned to the castle to find you two and got recaptured. Xavier-" she spat the name like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "-doesn't know about it. Your father was the only one who did in case he ever had to get you kids and your mother and sister out of the kingdom in a hurry."

Her tone was pained when she mentioned the father and the mother and the sister. Jessica and Evan were filled with a strange sense of grief at the mention of the mother and the father, despite having never met them, and an odd feeling of guilt wrapped itself around Jessica's heart at the mention of the sister.

"Now hurry, and be careful. The tunnels aren't the most stable things in the world, so no stomping and no loud noises," the woman commanded, lightly pushing the brother and sister through the hole.

 _"Vielen Dank, Mia,"_ Jessica told her in perfect German.

 _"Ich brauche mich nicht zu bedanken, Prinzessin,"_ the woman replied before shoving the trunk back in front of the hole.

 _(Jessica: Thank you, Mia._

 _Mia: No need to thank me, princess)_

Jessica turned to Evan, who was staring at her in absolute confusion.

"What?" Jessica asked.

"You just spoke in perfect German," Evan questioned, "and you knew her name."

"Evan, what are you talking about?" Jessica asked as they began walking. "Neither of us spoke in German."

"Yes, you did," Evan responded. "You said _Vielen Dank,"_ he repeated in a German accent, "which means thank you in German, and she replied in German, too. She said-"

"No need to thank me," Jessica finished.

"Princess," Evan added. "She called you princess. None of this makes any sense. You shouldn't be able to speak German. I shouldn't be able to understand it like I have Google Translate in my head," Evan snapped, hands on his hips as his pace sped up slightly.

After a moment, he sighed. "I'm sorry, Jessica. I'm just so confused. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

Jessica nodded. "I know, Ev," she stated, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "We need to figure out how to get back to our time."

"You have any idea how to do that?" Evan asked.

Jessica shook her head.

"We'll, that's not good 'cause neither do I," Evan muttered.

"Look, I know logic has gone out the window and our definitions of impossible and possible are a little scrambled," Jessica said, her voice eerily loud in the dark and silent tunnel, "But if something sent us here, that something has to be able to send us back. The only things I can think of are the creepy guy that was chasing us and the Terror Tower."

"So our options are to find the person trying to kill us or return to the place where there are dozens of people who want us dead? Amazing," Evan grumbled, sarcastically.

"Okay, so both of those options are out. The best thing we can do is get out of this village and find a place to lay low until we find a solution."

"If there _is_ a solution," Evan couldn't help but say. "Can we rest here first? I'm exhausted and Mia said that the bad guys don't know about the tunnels."

Jessica nodded. "Okay, little brother."

Jessica and Evan laid down on the ground. The hard earth should've been uncomfortable, but to the two exhausted kids, it felt like they were sleeping on a cloud.

They were asleep the second their heads hit the dirt.

* * *

 _Light hearted laughter filled the air, and the smell of delicious food permeated the room._

 _A family of five sat at the table with a man and a woman at each end. Two girls sat on the left, one of them fourteen and the other, the age of seven; on the right side of the table sat a single boy, age twelve. Food was piled high across the table, and each of the family members were smiling and glowing with happiness._

 _That didn't last long._

 _"Want to see a new magic trick?" The boy asked._

 _"No," the older girl replied._

 _"Come on," the boy groaned, and the joking bickering began as the young girl giggled at her older siblings' behavior._

 _The father and mother lifted their wine glasses to their lips, smiling behind the glasses at their children's antics, but a moment later, both were coughing, hacking even._

 _The bickering stopped immediately._

 _"Mother, Father, is everything all right?" The older girl asked, desperately, and the young girl screamed as she watched her parents spit blood out of their mouths, expressions of pain prevalent on their faces._

 _"Mama, Papa!" the young girl cried, but it did nothing as she could only watch her parents slump over, motionless. Their green eyes were wide and unseeing, blood trickling out of their own mouths and down their already blood splattered chins_

 _The door flew open, and a familiar man stepped inside._

 _"Uncle Xavier?" The boy asked, voice quiet and shocked and so very terrified._

 _The man spread his arms wide, a smile that can only be described as disturbing spreading across his face._

 _"Hello, children," he said, his voice calm and low. "I'm home."_

 _That was the night that the children's lives as they knew them ended._

* * *

Jessica sat up with a sharp intake of air, and her brother followed not a second after her.

The siblings spent the next few moments catching their breaths before they turned to each other.

"Jess, did you have the same dream I did?" Evan murmured.

Jessica nodded. "About the man named Xavier, the dead adults-"

"And the scared kids," Evan finished. "The ones that looked just like us. Those adults looked kind of… familiar, didn't they?"

"No," Jessica replied, but she was lying to her brother and to herself.

"But-"

"No," Jessica reiterated, firmer this time. "We didn't know them. Those kids may look like us, but they are not us. We don't belong here."

Silence fell over them like a heavy, suffocating blanket before Jessica finally stood.

"We should get moving," Jessica said. "The guards may not know about this place, but I don't want to wait for them to find out, and the sooner we get back to our time, the better."

Evan didn't say a word in protest.

* * *

 _I hope everyone enjoyed this new chapter. Goodbye, everyone, and have a nice day!_


	14. Chapter 14

_Hello, everyone, I have arrived with chapter 14. I know! Four chapters in under a week. What has gotten into me? *laughs* I hope you like it!_

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own Goosebumps or anything that you recognize. I only own the OCs, Jessica and Evan, and even they were an idea from retro mania, so I don't even entirely own them._**

* * *

"We've been walking for hours!"

"We've only been walking for ten minutes!"

"Well, it feels like hours," Evan grumbled as the siblings continued down the tunnel, trying to ignore the pebbles that occasionally rained down on them displaying the tunnel's instability.

"It's official!" Jessica muttered. "We have no idea where we are or where we're going! We're lost!"

"You're just now figuring that out?" Evan demanded in disbelief.

Jessica sighed in exasperation. "All right. It's obvious that we're tired, stressed, and I don't even want to think about how long it's been since we ate."

"I'm not sure you could figure it out anyway, what with the messy time travel situation and the fact that we don't even remember anything before the Tower Of Terror," Evan pointed out.

Jessica nodded. "Exactly, but just because we're exhausted, hungry, and stressed out-"

"Traumatized," Evan corrected.

"That, too. Doesn't mean we can lose our heads. We're still being hunted by that creepy guy-"

"I've been calling him The Hunter."

"That works. We can't afford to fight each other when we should be figuring out how to escape him and get back to our own time," she continued.

Evan nodded. "I know, but… Jess, we don't even know where to start. We don't know where we are or how we got here. All we know is that everyone is calling us Jessabella and Edmund and the kids in the portrait look like us and someone is after us. I don't know about you, but I don't even know where to start," Evan murmured as he leaned against the wall and sunk to the floor, not meeting Jessica's eyes.

Jessica exhaled loudly through her nose, and she sat beside her brother, placing a hand on his scrawny shoulder.

"We'll figure it out, Edmund. We have to."

Evan blinked and looked up. "You think so?"

Jessica nodded, but she knew that she was lying to herself and her brother because the truth is: she didn't know. She didn't know what to do or where to go or who to ask for help. It was just her and her twelve year old brother in the Middle Ages. They were on their own, and that terrified her more than she would ever admit out loud.

"Whatever happens, Edmund, I'm right here," Jessica promised, wrapping an arm around her little brother.

Evan offered her a feeble smile. "Thanks, Bella."

"Anytime," Jessica told him before she suddenly paused, something teetering on the edge of her mind. "Bella…"

"What?" Evan inquired in confusion at the seemingly random word.

"You called me Bella."

Evan looked her in her eyes, green meeting green, bewilderment, shock, and maybe a little fear swirling together in his expression. "And you called me Edmund."

Everyone was calling them Jessabella and Edmund and now they were calling each other that. None of it made any sense. _Nothing_ made sense anymore. Even their memories were scattered and jumbled. If they couldn't rely on their own memories… what could they rely on?

They were both thinking it, but neither wanted to say it. Saying it out loud made it real, and this… all of this… was too crazy to be real. A part of Jessica still believed this was some weird dream, and she'd wake up on the bus with their tour group any second now.

Of course, something stronger than her logic and her denial told her that no, this wasn't a dream. This was all too real. It was frighteningly real.

Jessica opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, the ground began to tremble, and a few tumbling pebbles became heavy clumps of dirt and solid rock as the two of them barely managed to stumble to their feet, holding onto each other to avoid falling from the force of the shaking.

"What's happening?" Evan yelled over the thunderous booming of shifting and falling earth.

"I don't know, but I think it's going to bring the ceiling down!" Jessica shouted, dodging a piece of debris that surely would've knocked her out had it hit her head.

"What do we do?" Evan screamed.

 _Do the only thing we can do,_ Jessica thought.

"RUN!" she replied, and she ushered her brother along, holding onto his jacket as she held him as close as she could without tripping over him. The debris continued to fall, hitting her back a couple of times, and she used her own body to protect Evan from the debris, which ranged from pebbles the size of a finger tip to boulder sized pieces of earth.

"There! Up ahead!" Jessica called, pointing to a spot of light in the ceiling, and the two of them stopped beneath it. It appeared that the quaking had shaken a piece of dirt loose, leaving a good sized hole behind.

"I'll give you a boost," Jessica informed her brother in a tone that left no room for argument, and Jessica knelt, locking her fingers into a makeshift foothold. Her brother placed his sneaker on her palms, and with as much strength as she could muster, she pushed her brother upward, allowing him to scramble out of the hole.

Jessica, much taller than her brother, kicked the wall of the tunnel until she was able to make a foothold for herself, and she nudged her sneakers into kinks in the dirt wall until she could finally reach the hole.

Jessica grabbed a hold of the grass on the surface, but just before she could pull herself up, the foothold she'd made for herself crumbled, and she found herself falling. She wanted to scream, knowing that if she fell into the tunnel, there was no way she would get back out before it collapsed on her, but her terror had stolen her breath. She made one last desperate grab for something to hold onto…

Someone grabbed her wrist.

Jessica smiled in relief, and she glanced up, blinking the dirt from her eyes.

"Thanks, Ev…" she trailed off, her smile disappearing just as quickly as it had come.

It wasn't Evan.

Standing above her, smiling sinisterly down at her terrified expression, was the The Hunter.

* * *

 _Theme Songs:_

 _Overall Theme Song For The Story: Pompeii by Bastille_

 _Jessica: Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips_

 _Evan: Can You Hold Me? by Britt Nicole and NF_

 _Lucinda: Without You, Boyce Avenue Version_

 _You'll find out more about Lucinda in chapters 16, 17, and 18, and many of your questions will be answered._

 _Thank you for reading. Please leave a review. I know it was kind of choppy; sorry about that._


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